CHAPTER X

MONT FRENET.—LA CHAMPAGNE POUILLEUSE.—THE RETURN

CHÂLONS, _10 p.m._

We dashed into the train at Revigny during the hail-storm, an infernal kind that didn’t cool the air, and arrived at Châlons at six o’clock. No cabs, at least none for us, so we begged two Quaker women with the red-and-white star in the little black triangle on their sleeves, who were getting into the only visible conveyance, to take our luggage and deposit it for us at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, whose name so appealed to me. We paid our share of the cab, and all and everything departed, we on foot. Châlons seems quite without character as one passes through the streets, though I caught sight of several old churches and, alone, would have lingered on the busy bridge that spans the Marne. We got to the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu and interviewed the female keeper of that special paradise, who said she had nothing for us, had received no telephone message from the _préfet_ at Bar-le-Duc or any other _préfet_ from any other place. Then Mrs. C. P.—the Verdun day and the Bar-le-Duc nights having somewhat stretched our nerves—began to get annoyed; the desk-lady finally asked us, did we belong to the Westinghouse Commission, which we didn’t. We then betook ourselves to the streets. Nothing at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, nothing at the Hôtel-Restaurant du Renard. We finally asked a large, beady-eyed, determined-looking female, standing at a door, if she had accommodations or knew of any one who had. She proved to be the _sage-femme_ of the quarter and eyed us askance.

Just then appeared a very _comme il faut_, pretty young woman with an expression at once so charming and so modest that we did not hesitate to accost her and tell her of our plight—that it looked as if we should be passing the night _à la belle étoile_ if some one didn’t do something for us. She hesitated, looked at us, hesitated again. Smashed down on her head at a smart angle was the identical hat that Mrs. C. P. was wearing, blue with a twisting of gray, from Reboux. I think that hat crystallized things, for she ended by saying, sweetly:

“I have a room that I sometimes offer to friends; only,” she added, “there is a horrible stairway leading to it.”

We turned our backs on the _sage-femme_, doubtless naturally good, but soured by the constant witnessing of the arrival on the scene of apparently superfluous human beings (I say “apparently,” for who shall decide which souls are precious?), and followed those neatly clad, small feet and slim ankles up a winding stairway that might have been of any epoch—except the nineteenth or twentieth century, and found ourselves in a charming little interior, spotlessly clean. “_C’est à votre disposition_,” she said, and then a servant appeared, a refugee from Tahure, as we afterward learned, a garrulous refugee. I beat my breast later on when I heard the loud bassoon, telling Mrs. C. P. that I even hated refugees and that that one would have, if possible, to contain her tale till I had had a night’s sleep. At the moment I hated her with all the unreasoning hatred of the beneficiary for the benefactor.

Well, to make a long story short, closets were opened, the freshest of embroidered linen sheets, the largest of towels, were got out, and were left to us in the handsomest of ways _with_ the refugee, the owner departing to her country house. The refugee managed to get in part of the story of her life and she brought hot water; she was from Tahure and left on the run with an aged husband, just before the entry of the enemy.

Then we looked about the pleasant room. The first object I espied was a pair of manly brown kid gloves, the next a blue gas-mask bag, and a cigarette-case, with a crest, lying near a volume of Alfred de Vigny. (Can’t you see them reading it together?) And there was such a comfortable _chaise-longue_ for him to rest on, and an expensive, very “comfy” rug and many cushions. As the refugee from Tahure proceeded to make up the bed and sofa she interspersed the story of _her_ life with remarks concerning her mistress, like: “_Allez, elles ne sont pas toutes comme cela, elle a un cœur d’or_”; “_Moi, qui vous le dis, elle n’a pas une mauvaise pensée_.”

At this juncture we delicately asked, But where does she _live_? “Oh, he has given her a little château in the environs.” This was a convenient town apartment with the one big room giving on the Place de la République; at the back a dining-room and little kitchen. Having removed the dust of travel, hot water being produced in a jiffy from the gas-stove on the kitchen range, we descended to take dinner at one of the restaurants near by. We were so tired about this time that the decalogue wasn’t much to us, neither the Law nor the Prophets, but be it remembered of us, we _did_ love our neighbor as ourselves.

When we came back after supper the sofa was spread with large, crisp, spotless linen sheets, the bed the same, the refugee gone, and here we are in this clean, low-ceilinged room with eighteenth-century wood-panelings and charming door-handles of the same period. There is a crayon of the present tenant reflecting her sweet and candid expression over the mantelpiece, on which are two Dresden-china figures and a small white-marble “Young Bacchus”; furthermore an etching by Hellu of the Duchess of Marlborough, which made one feel quite poised. In fact, there is nothing _demi_ about it.

The Place de la République is full of soldiers coming and going, and there are several ambulances of the Scottish Ambulance Corps drawn up by a big fountain representing three women (typifying the Marne, the Moselle, and the Agne). Over the soft, warm night is borne the low boom of cannon. The guard has just called out: “_Faites attention! Lumière au troisième étage_”—so I must stop.

_Tuesday, 9.30 a.m._

Sitting in the Place de la République on chairs borrowed from a little lace-shop, and waiting for the cab to come to take us to General Goïgoux, to whom Madame Fould had given us a letter of introduction. Just opposite is the inhospitable Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, and I have been telling Mrs. C. P., who has gone to buy some fruit, of the story of Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet passing through Châlons _en route_ from Versailles to Lunéville. At Châlons Madame du Châtelet thought she’d like to have a bouillon at the Hôtel de la Cloche d’Or, where they stopped to change horses. (It still exists and is the only one we didn’t try last night.) It was brought them to their carriage by the _aubergiste_ herself, who had learned from the indiscreet postilion the identity of the illustrious travelers. When Longchamp, the valet of Voltaire, asks to pay, she firmly demands a louis d’or for the bouillon. “La divine Emilie” protests, the woman insists that at her hotel the “price of an egg, a bouillon, or a dinner is a louis”; then Voltaire gets out and tries by amiable processes to explain that in no country in the world did a bouillon ever cost a louis; more cries and reproaches; a crowd gathers; Voltaire, strong in his right, doesn’t want to give way. Madame du Châtelet points out the gathering crowd, now quite noisy. Finally they pay, Voltaire commending to all the devils the hospitable town of Châlons-sur-Marne; they depart to the accompaniment of the gibes of the amiable inhabitants. It may be _autre temps_, but not _autres mœurs_; it’s just like the woman at the desk at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu, who wouldn’t take us in, in any sense, last night.

The most awful-looking cab has just drawn up in front of “our” house, and a smart American ambulance officer is trying to get in.

IN THE TRAIN EN ROUTE FOR PARIS.

The first quiet breath I have drawn, and very comfortable it is to sink into the broad seats, out of the glare of the setting sun, and feel there is nothing to inspect save the flying aspect of nature for the next three hours.

The handsome officer this morning proved to be Mr. B., and he didn’t get that cab, which, however, we promised to send back to him once we were deposited at the general’s headquarters.

General Goïgoux is most agreeable. When he asked us where we were lodged, we threw a stone at the Hôtel de la Haute Mère Dieu and told him of our Good Samaritan. He gave a grin, if generals are supposed to grin, when we said that we had not disturbed her to any great extent, as she had, in addition, a country place where she really lived. We then told him of our meeting with Miss N. and Miss M., who had asked us to investigate the canteen prospects on our way back to Paris. The installing of one has long been the idea of General Goïgoux, who loves his _poilus_, and he immediately rang the bell on his table—among his books was a German Baedeker of eastern France—and in a moment a captain with a sad face and a black band on his arm appeared, and we departed in a huge military auto to the station to investigate the great railway shed that the general has requisitioned for canteen purposes.

Going through the streets, we were held up for a moment by a detachment of prisoners in various uniforms and from various regiments, but all with P.G. (_prisonnier de guerre_) marked in large letters on their backs. A tall, upstanding set with ringing tread, not at all unhappy-looking, despite a something set about their expression, seemingly in very good physical condition.

Statues of the top-hatted, frock-coated political men of nineteenth-century France have banalized the public places of every town in the _doux pays_. They simply can’t compete with the saints and kings and warriors of the artistic periods—it’s too bad they have tried.

At 12.30 we got back to our pleasant quarters, to find our hostess there, in a very smart dark-blue serge dress from Jeanne Hallé. In addition to the château, the shop down-stairs, called “Aux Alliés,” where all sorts of edible delicacies are sold, belongs to her together with a tall and beautiful red-haired Frenchwoman. This is her up-stairs resting-place during the day. We sank on bed and sofa, exhausted by the heat, the visit to the station to inspect the canteen facilities, which seemed most promising, visits to two churches, and luncheon in the crowded Restaurant du Renard. In the church of St.-Alpin white-bloused experts were busy removing the beautiful sixteenth-century stained-glass windows. “If ’twere done, ’twere well ’twere done quickly.” That continued booming of guns made one realize at once their fragility and their beauty.

Shortly after, a handsome young officer came in, a gentleman, and speaking beautiful English. It wasn’t “he,” however, but a friend of his, and we did a little “society” talk—the weather, the necessity of learning the languages young, the theater, that Réjane was getting old, and “_L’Elévation_” was bad for the morals, and fashions, if the skirts _could_ get shorter—but nothing of the war.

At two o’clock another military auto was announced, which the general had sent with a doctor to take us to Mont Frenet, four kilometers from Suippes and six from the German lines. The young officer departed; we veiled and gloved ourselves and descended, and got into the motor, where we found a large, dark, military man inclining to _embonpoint_, who thought he was good-looking, and started out. The first thing we met as we got out of town on the dusty, blazing highroad was a little funeral cortége, preceded by a priest. The body of the soldier was draped in the tricolor, and following to his last rest, close behind, was his _camarade_, with head bared. He had doubtless expired in the big hospital near by, one of those lonely hospital deaths that hundreds of thousands have suffered before transfiguration.

We were in the great plain of the Champagne Pouilleuse that leads to Suippes, Sainte-Ménehould, and stretches out to Reims—a plain with great, white, chalky scars of quarries, interspersed with fields and dark patches of pine woods. I asked the doctor about the site of the ancient camp of Attila and the battle of the Catalonian fields, but his knowledge of the matter was vague and his interest perfunctory. I thought afterward he might have had a more personal afternoon planned than that of taking two objective-minded ladies to Mont Frenet. There was once a great Roman road from Bar-le-Duc to Reims, and all about are little churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, mostly touched up in the eighteenth.

After three-quarters of an hour we found ourselves nearing what might have been a modern mining settlement. It is the great front hospital of Mont Frenet. A model establishment organized and conducted by a man of heart and brain, Doctor Poutrain. Young, _élancé_, alert, he took us the rounds of his little world, from the door where the ambulances deposit their wounded, their dying, and oft their dead, where they are sorted out, through the numberless wards, even to the model wash-houses and the places where the garments of those brought in are scientifically separated from their inevitable and deadly live stock.

As we passed through one of the wards, I saw the doctor’s eye change, and, following it, I perceived, as he quickly went to the bedside, a face with the death look already on it; and in a moment, with a slight sigh, a soul had breathed itself out—_en route_ to the heaven of those who die _pro patria_.

And I thought in great awe, “All I know or ever will know of that human being is his supreme hour.” And so fortuitous, so sudden was it all that I had not even time to breathe a word of prayer, nor even to reach out for his hand. And I, come from so far, so unrelated to him, was thus the destined witness of his passing. I can’t get it out of my mind.

Doctor Poutrain loves his broken men, and he said, “I want no man who has been severely wounded or mutilated to leave my hospital without his decoration.” He had tears in his eyes as he stood by a bed where a bright-eyed, thin-faced boy was lying with a hip fracture. “He brought a comrade in, under fire, who was shot off his back as he was carrying him in.”

In one of the beds an aviator was lying, brought in three days before; the eyes, the mouth, the whole face had still the peculiar look of strain. Indeed, three faces stand out in one’s mind—the captivity face, the hard, shining face and eyes of unwounded men just from the combat, and the faces of wounded aviators. About this time I noticed the gloomy look deepening on the face of our accompanying Esculapius, and it suddenly occurred to me “he is one of those who support with difficulty the praises of another.” For we _had_ been very explicit in praise of Doctor Poutrain’s wonderful installation.

It was a slack day, and according to the record in the antechamber there had only been 517 brought in that day.

We have tea with the _directrice_ of the _gardes-malades_ (ten or twelve women only), a friend of Madame Fould’s. As we sat there talking I discovered that the eager _médecin-chef_ had had, before the war, as hobby, archeology and ethnology, especially of the prehistoric races of Mexico; that he also possessed one of the few Aztec codices existing—all of which we discussed to the sound of the German guns and the whirring of their airplanes.

We finally made our adieux, came home over the hot, unspeakably dusty road of the Champagne Pouilleuse, unreasonably disappointed that nobody would give us permission to make a little détour by Suippes, then under fire. We got back to our headquarters, packed our belongings, and diffidently brought up the subject of remuneration, which the _belle châtelaine_ firmly refused. I was traveling light, without a single thing approaching the superfluous, but Mrs. P. had a breakfast-cap and her tortoise-shell toilet things and trees for her shoes, and she also found among her belongings a lovely amber box, which she presented in token of our gratitude. We _could_ make the garrulous refugee from Tahure not only happy, but speechless, which was more to the point; and here we are, looking out on a darkening world, and there are soldiers bathing in the river, near stacked guns, and everywhere little detachments are marching down dim roads, and there are the eternal troop- and equipment-trains going to the front—and I feel an immense regret at leaving it all....

PARIS.

As we were sitting in the dining-car, idly wondering how on earth we were going to get from the station to our respective abodes once the train had deposited us at the Gare de l’Est, or planning to spend the night there, the Marquis de M. passed through the car. His motor was to meet him, and he gallantly offered transit, that can be above rubies and pearls _par le temps qui court_.

When we got to Paris at 10.30 we saw in the dim light, as we stepped into the big motor, _voyagers_ departing with luggage on their backs, or, preparing to await the dawn, sitting on it. We got into the motor with Comte de ——, the Marquis himself sitting outside, “for the air,” as he said, and also because there was no more room inside.

As we rolled along through the dimly lighted streets, the air dense and hot, a terrific hail- and thunder-storm suddenly deluged the town, and especially the generous Marquis outside, well punished (as usual) for his kind act. When, slipping and skidding, we finally pulled up at my hotel, a very wet gentleman, but remembering his manners, said, “_Au plaisir de vous revoir, madame_.” (He must really have wished me to all the devils, where he would never meet me a second time, hoping it was a last as well as a first meeting.) I had to laugh, also he, the pleasure was so evidently doubtful. It ended by his betaking his soaking person into the auto, and I came up-stairs to find my lamps trimmed and burning and my beloved mother awaiting me to hear “all about it.”

So may one go to the front and return....

PART II